Higgins wins Irish presidency with 57 pct of votes

Michael D Higgins, right, and Sinn Fein's Martin McGuinness wait for the first count in the election to be next President of Ireland at Dublin Castle, Ireland, Friday, Oct. 28, 2011. (AP Photo/Peter Morrison)
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Michael D Higgins, right, and Sinn Fein's Martin McGuinness wait for the first count in the election to be next President of Ireland at Dublin Castle, Ireland, Friday, Oct. 28, 2011. (AP Photo/Peter Morrison)
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Michael D. Higgins, right, is congratulated by Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny after being declared the 9th President of Ireland at Dublin Castle, Ireland, Saturday, Oct. 29, 2011. Michael D. Higgins, center and his wife Sabina, right, react after Higgins was declared the 9th President of Ireland at Dublin Castle, Dublin Ireland, Saturday, Oct. 29, 2011. Irish electoral officials say veteran left-wing politician Michael D. Higgins has won the presidential election with a total 56.8 percent share of votes. Saturday's result capped a two-day count of ballots to determine who would succeed Mary McAleese as Ireland's ceremonial head of state. (AP Photo/Peter Morrison)
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Michael D. Higgins, center and his wife Sabina, right, with family from left, Michael, Alice Mary, John and Daniel after Higgins was declared the 9th President of Ireland at Dublin Castle, Ireland, Saturday, Oct. 29, 2011. Irish electoral officials say veteran left-wing politician Michael D. Higgins has won the presidential election with a total 56.8 percent share of votes. Saturday's result capped a two-day count of ballots to determine who would succeed Mary McAleese as Ireland's ceremonial head of state. (AP Photo/Peter Morrison)— AP

Michael D. Higgins, center and his wife Sabina, right, with family from left, Michael, Alice Mary, John and Daniel after Higgins was declared the 9th President of Ireland at Dublin Castle, Ireland, Saturday, Oct. 29, 2011. Irish electoral officials say veteran left-wing politician Michael D. Higgins has won the presidential election with a total 56.8 percent share of votes. Saturday's result capped a two-day count of ballots to determine who would succeed Mary McAleese as Ireland's ceremonial head of state. (AP Photo/Peter Morrison)
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DUBLIN 
Michael D. Higgins, a veteran left-wing politician, poet and human rights activist, was declared the winner Saturday of Ireland's presidential election with nearly 57 percent of votes, and pledged to lift the spirits of a struggling nation.

Higgins said he wanted to help revive the public's faith in politicians at a time when Ireland faces record debts, a property market collapse, 15 percent unemployment and a fourth straight year of severe spending cuts.

The diminutive Higgins, 70, beamed with pride as he received congratulations inside Dublin Castle from government leaders and most rival candidates. He announced he would resign immediately as president and member of the Labour Party, the junior member of Ireland's coalition government, because his new role as ceremonial head of state meant he must be "a president for all the people."

Higgins received more than 1 million votes of the nearly 1.8 million cast in Thursday's election. Referring to the 43 percent of registered voters who didn't cast a ballot, he said, "I want to be a president, too, for those who didn't vote, whose trust in public institutions I will encourage and work to recover. ... I dedicate my abilities to the service and welfare of the people of Ireland."

Once Higgins is inaugurated as president Nov. 11, he becomes Ireland's senior ambassador, tasked with building confidence at home and goodwill abroad.

The Irish president wields no government power beyond the ability to refer potentially unconstitutional legislation to Ireland's Supreme Court. But the presidency enjoys considerable freedom to shape Ireland's rapidly secularizing society by bringing different groups together at the Phoenix Park residence and traveling the world expressing a vision of what it should mean to be Irish in the 21st century.

Higgins is a former Galway university lecturer and published poet who has dedicated his four-decade political career to championing Irish culture and left-wing human rights causes worldwide. He also is one of Ireland's most instantly recognized politicians, in part, because of his 5-foot-4 (1.63 meter) stature and much-imitated high voice. Local satirists sometimes depict him as an elf, hobbit or leprechaun talking in riddles and verse.

Higgins served as arts minister in the mid-1990s, during which he launched tax breaks for film production in Ireland and a new TV channel to promote programming in Gaelic, Ireland's native but little-spoken language. Higgins, who has roots in the rural western counties of Clare and Galway, is fluent.

Saturday's result capped a two-day count of ballots to determine who would succeed Mary McAleese, Ireland's popular president since 1997. She said Higgins' win opens "an exciting chapter for ... our global Irish family."

Diarmaid Ferriter, professor of modern history at University College Dublin, said it was striking that Ireland had elected a politician who for decades had been "a thorn in the side of the establishment" - and now was the official face of Ireland. He said Higgins' triumph reflected voter anger at right-wing politicians who had brought Ireland to the brink of bankruptcy.

"The idea that the Irish have elected a poet with a social conscience, with a track record in human rights, that's a very positive development," Ferriter said.